Yet another proposal to increase the state’s minimum wage has been introduced in the state Legislature – and this one could be particularly damaging to upstate New York..
For the past eight years, there have been two minimum wages in New York state – one for the New York City region and another for the rest of the state where the cost of living is much lower. The differing minimum wages were a final parting gift from the period when Republicans held tenuous control of the state Senate. Former state Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, used her clout in the state Senate to help sway Gov. Andrew Cuomo that the lower minimum wage for downstate would both help workers by boosting their minimum wage and businesses by not subjecting them to a higher minimum wage that they would struggle to pay.
That system should stay in place, in our view. Western New York, despite the inflation we all have dealt with the past few years, is still far less expensive a place to live than New York City. Businesses in the state’s rural areas simply cannot make ends meet being held to the same wage standard as New York City. We are at the tail end of an inflationary period driven in part by government decisions, first with stimulus checks that put too much money into the economy and, now, by several years of minimum wage increases. Inflation has eaten up any gains workers have made, and simply increasing the minimum wage again will only fuel price increases that will continue to fuel higher inflation.
In our view, A.9093/S.8154 should stay on the shelf for a while. Businesses need some semblance of cost certainty when it comes to wages, and no one knows how things will work with the minimum wage being tied to inflation as was agreed to last year during state budget talks. That compromise, we note, came with a couple of circuit breakers tied to unemployment and employment levels that A.9093/S.8154 would remove – a hasty move given we haven’t yet seen how that system works yet.
Let the dust on last year’s minimum wage actions settle – and see how many businesses are left standing – before making more changes.
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